I would like to copy many of my old audio CD's that I bought to a flash drive that I can run through the USB port in the center consul. I don't have the radio manual with me so I don't remember the formats that are supported. I would like to copy the songs into the best price performer of the formats. In other words, I think lossless would take up to much space but MP3 would suffer too much in audio quality. I have about 20 to 30 favorite albums I want to copy. I have two questions:

1. What format should I copy to that is supported and is the best price performer?
2. What is the best PC program to use to do this copying?

Zooks527

03-08-2013 02:06 AM

I use 192k or 256k MP3. There's some compression, but you're in a car and I don't find it noticeable. The radio will also support the .wav format.

On the program side, I believe that Window Media Player will do it in Windows 7. That's not what I use, but what I use is no longer available.

lqaddict

03-08-2013 02:45 AM

I think you can only use mp3 and wav

jborchel

03-08-2013 08:09 AM

What is the quality diff between mp3 and wav? I believe I read somwhere that you can rip to 320kb in mp3. What bit rate is .wav?

ND40oz

03-08-2013 08:20 AM

WAV is usually uncompressed LPCM and the file sizes are going to be huge. In that format, you're looking at 10 MB a minute for file size, which is why a 740 MB cd typically could hold 74 minutes of music.

ctuna

03-08-2013 08:40 AM

If you are going to a USB stick space in not such and issue

If you are going to a USB stick space in not such and issue
Since you can get a 16gb usb stick pretty cheaply these days(or even more).
If you are going to a CD Disk with your Mp3 's at 320 you can get about 50 tunes
per disk, about a 4 to one compression and I can't tell the difference
between that and a Cd. If you have Itunes you can export as a play list to a usb
stick I believe you can make cd's in any format itunes supports.
I bought a little utility off the net the allows you to copy your itunes playlists to a usb
stick in the format they are in .
I believe the BMW radio cd support both mp3 and wav not sure about the rest but can't see how
it wouldn't do apple stuff.

SD Z4MR

03-08-2013 04:07 PM

What car does this apply to? Your "Mein auto" indicates a Porsche Boxster, why would any of these answers apply to your Boxster? Are you asking in this forum because you also own a E9x BMW? If so, specify what year and model, as audio options vary almost from year-to-year in an E9x.

Pasa-d

03-09-2013 08:06 AM

I went through that very process last winter vacation. I used FreeRIP to convert about 150 CDs to variable bit rate MP3 files and then used Windows Media Player to fill in the album, artist and track information and to sync the files to the USB stick.

Works fine on my non-iDrive radio using the center console USB port. I would suggest doing a single album first and then confirming your particular radio will support your chosen format; many older ones won't support VBR MP3 files if that's what you choose to use.